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Message-Id: <200701020242.l022g4Qc018451@turing-police.cc.vt.edu>
Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 21:42:04 -0500
From: Valdis.Kletnieks@...edu
To: Alan <alan@...rguk.ukuu.org.uk>
Cc: Trent Waddington <trent.waddington@...il.com>,
Bernd Petrovitsch <bernd@...mix.at>,
Erik Mouw <erik@...ddisk-recovery.com>,
Giuseppe Bilotta <bilotta78@...pop.com>,
linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: Open letter to Linux kernel developers (was Re: Binary Drivers)
On Sun, 31 Dec 2006 17:09:43 GMT, Alan said:
> That IP story is for the most part not even credible. If they were worried
> about "software IP" they would release hardware docs and let us get on
> with writing drivers that may well not be as cool as theirs but would
> work. If they had real IPR in their hardware then they would hold patents
> on it and would be able to take action against (or license it) to anyone
> else making hardware. That would apply even outside the USA where
> software patents are generally not valid.
>
> The only hardware IP they'd need to protect would appear to be anything
> that revealed they used other people's IPR without permission or
> licenses. Given the Nvidia/3Dfx affair I can see why they would be
> worried about that given it cost them $70M and 1 million shares.
Hey, I started out *up front* pointing out they can't open-source the
drivers because some of the IP is other people's, didn't I? :)
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